There was a rather large gathering of TV crews and photographers outside the Red Bull garage as the clock ticked to 10am in Sochi last Friday morning. You could tell where the initial story was for the first practice session, even if you hadn’t been keeping across the various Motorsport websites in the previous 24 hours.

Daniel Ricciardo was due to go out and complete one installation lap, a lap where all the systems would be checked on his car to make sure it was in working order, before getting on with the rest of his programme for the session. But his car would have one key addition for this lap, the Red Bull ‘Aeroscreen’ or canopy to the likes of you and me.

As Formula One raced on Sunday May 1st for the first time since the San Marino Grand Prix at Iola in 1994, where we tragically lost both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna in the space of 24 horrific hours, driver safety was thrust very much into the spot light.